Interior of a Palace with Noblemen Conversing

In this surimono by Totoya Hokkei, a group of robed noblemen converse within the interior of a courtly residence, their figures arranged across a shallow stage of tatami, screens, and architectural framing. Hokkei was among the leading pupils of Katsushika Hokusai, and the picture shows his Hokusai school training in the supple, individuated drawing of each face and in the rhythmic patterning of the figures' kimono. Rather than the gaudy palette of commercial ukiyo-e of the period, the print is keyed to the muted, refined tones favored in deluxe surimono, the privately commissioned prints that wealthy kyōka poets exchanged in the early nineteenth century. Hokkei's reputation rested largely on this genre, and works such as this one allowed him to draw on classical court imagery to flatter the literary aspirations of his patrons. The subject would have read, for an Edo kyoka-e audience, as a knowing allusion to Heian-era romances and to themes from Genji and historical chronicles, all of which kyōka poets liked to parody and re-stage. The composition gives careful attention to gesture and gaze, so that the conversation among the figures becomes the structural anchor of the design. The print is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection of Japanese surimono, an area in which Hokkei is one of the most frequently represented designers. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.